Soft-ground etching. A block of Art Deco flats, with a central tower, a balcony on the upper storey, and windows to either side. At the front is a post-and-lintel archway to the entrance, which is hidden by shrubs. To the left of the flats is a fragment of the neighbouring building. Standing before it is a figure, who casts a shadow on the wall.
A web of etched lines has been added across large areas of the plate, creating a much darker effect.
The rectangular wall behind the figure at left has been burnished, as have the upper windows and the area around the window to the left of the balcony.
- Catalogue Number
- E.040
- Title and Date
- The flats 1991
- Description of Featured Image
- A block of Art Deco flats, with a central tower, a balcony on the upper storey, and windows to either side. At the front is a post-and-lintel archway to the entrance, which is hidden by shrubs. To the left of the flats is a fragment of the neighbouring building, close to which is a figure who casts a shadow on the wall.
- Where Made
- Dunmoochin, Cottles Bridge
- Medium Category and Technique
- Intaglio Print: Soft-ground etching, etching, burnishing and drypoint on copper
- Support
- Wove paper. Identified papers: Papers mentioned in notes on this work in Amor’s intaglio record books: Stonehenge paper.
- Dimensions
-
Image size: 203 x 147 mm
Matrix size: 204 x 149 mm - Artist’s Record Number
- RAE.35
- Printer(s) and Workshop(s)
- All impressions printed by Rick Amor in his Dunmoochin studio, Cottles Bridge.
- Summary Edition Information
- Five states. No edition.
- Collections
- State Library of Victoria, Melbourne: four state impressions, numbered 1 through 4.
- Comment
The building depicted here is a block of Art Deco flats in Victoria Parade, East Melbourne, a location close to Melbourne’s CBD. This building features in three of Amor’s prints, as well as in one of his paintings, and has been depicted by the artist from various angles. In all of these portrayals, the structure is enveloped in an air of mystery that is produced by an interplay of shadows, and by the manner in which figures are placed in its vicinity. E.040 represents the building’s earliest appearance in Amor’s art and shows it at its most straightforward and hieratic.
Amor’s records indicate that, initially, he gave the etching the prosaic title ‘House East Melbourne’; however, the only inscribed title is the shorter and more evocative The flats.
The first state of the print is rendered in soft-ground etching and has all the characteristics of a drawing. In the subsequent states, the image took on an increasingly dark appearance, but the darkness was ultimately burnished to provide a subtler sense of light and a greater sculptural effect. Nevertheless, Amor decided against printing an edition of E.040, feeling that the work was ‘not good enough’.
For the principal etching of this subject, see Three figures by a building, begun in 1995 (cat. no. E.098). A colour woodcut of the same title had been made by the artist in 1993.
- Keywords
- Building, Inner suburb, Melbourne
- URL
- https://catalogue.rickamor.com.au/works/intaglio/the-flats/
Record last updated 15/02/2021